The striking mechanism of musical watches or music boxes is generally formed by a vibration plate and a system of actuating the strips of the vibration plate. The actuation system may be a rotating cylinder or a rotating disc, or suchlike.
Until now, the material of the vibration plate has been selected mainly on the basis of manufacturability and resistance to wear and fatigue. This is because the strips of the vibration plate are subjected to repeated elastic forces and the friction between the surface of the strips and the actuation pins may either cause abrasion or calking of the surfaces. At the same time, until now, manufacturers of striking watches or music boxes have always attempted to increase as much as possible the actuation energy of the strips, which requires very high elastic forces, particularly for the shortest strips, which correspond to the highest pitched sounds.
EP Patent Application No 2482275A1 in the name of MONTRES BREGUET SA describes a vibration plate for a music box in the form of a watch, composed of a set of pairs of parallel strips, connected at one end thereof to a heel, each pair of strips forming a tuning fork, wherein one of the strips of the pair can be set in vibration by a pin of a musical movement, and the vibration propagates to the other strip of the pair via a longitudinal wave. In a particular variant, the vibration plate is made of precious metal, gold, or metallic glass.